Creamy Chicken Quesadillas and Quick Spicy Rice

Side note to start off this post: Ignore that this does not at all match what I had on my meal plan for this week. My family has revolted and vetoed pretty much everything on that list or told me that they want it this weekend instead and I am about to scream because why can't I have what I want, stupid having-to-compromise sucks royally, and yes, I'm a little cranky, why do you ask?

*Breathes Deep Breaths*

Last night I wanted something for dinner that was both quick and would create leftovers for lunch today (to help out with my August Challenge of not eating out at all (3 days in and so far, so good!)). I stumbled across this recipe, which fit the bill pretty perfectly. Then I got home and found that I had neither (a) corn, nor (b) black beans, but decided, screw it, I'm making them anyway. So I fudged it a little bit.

Then, when I was almost done cooking, a certain person in my house, who is not the one who usually speaks in "Whine," started whining that there was no side dish to accompany the quesadillas, so I whipped up some rice to go on the side. And, lo, it all turned out delicious and everyone (except the pre-schooler, who didn't feel like eating anything because she survives on air and squeezy yogurts) enjoyed the heck out of the meal.

And because everything was so tasty, I thought I'd share what I did here, in case you, too, need a quick, easy meal on a weeknight when you would much rather be in bed eating a giant ice cream sundae.

Creamy Chicken Quesadillas
Adapted from Sugared Whisk

4 oz. cream cheese
1/3 c. water
1 chicken bullion cube
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1 cooked chicken breast, shredded
1 c. shredded cheese (I used cheddar)
4 burrito sized flour tortillas
butter for the pan

In a sauce pan, mix together cream cheese, water, and the herbs and spices. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the bullion is dissolved and the cream cheese has melted and incorporated. Add chicken and cook until heated through.

Melt a little butter in a skillet, swirling to coat. Place one tortilla in the pan, and on one half of the tortilla sprinkle on 1/8 of the cheese, top with 1/4 of the chicken mixture, and sprinkle 1/8 of the cheese on top of that. Flip over the the other half of the tortilla, and press down. Cook until browned, then flip and brown the other side. Remove from the pan. Repeat with the rest of the tortillas, fillings.

Quick Spicy Rice

1 can Rotel (heat level of your choosing)
1 1/4 c. water
1 chicken bullion cube
salt
1 c. rice (I used basmati because that's what I had on hand; cooking time may vary based on rice)

Combine the Rotel, water, chicken bullion cube and a pinch of salt in a sauce pan with a tight fitting lid. Bring to a boil, then add rice. Return to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, or until all liquid is absorbed and rice is soft. Remove from heat, and stir with a fork to fluff. Let sit 5 minutes.


We didn't do this, but thought it would be delicious - Combine cooked quick spicy rice with sour cream and shredded cheese. Stir together and place in a small casserole dish. Top with more shredded cheese. Bake (probably at 350 for 20 minutes) until heated through and bubbly.

Monday Meal Planning 8.1.11

I'm sitting here in disbelief that it's August already. August! The last month of summer! The last month before my oldest starts preschool! I'm so not ready for all of this!

Anyway, we still have to eat, so here's what we're having this week:

Monday: Spice-rubbed rib-eye with Bar Americain Steak Sauce, Grilled Potatoes with Spicy Tomato Mayonaise, and steamed fresh peas

For Aaron's birthday back in May, I bought him a Bobby Flay cookbook to inspire him to use our new grill. He decided he didn't really want it, but never took it back, and now we're stuck with the cookbook, so we're using it tonight. We also have some fresh peas from my parents' garden which need to be used (and Sophie gets peas for the first time tonight!), so those will be accompanying this dinner as well. Fresh peas are one of my favorite foods, hands down.

Tuesday: Perfect poached eggs and sauteed kale on toast, fruit salad

As adventurous as I usually am in the kitchen, I've never tried to poach an egg the traditional way. Well, I'm trying it this week. Wish me luck!

Wednesday: Macaroni and Cheese, brats and hot dogs, broccoli

This is a request from Gabbie, and I don't know why I'm giving in, because she almost never eats the macaroni and cheese even though she swears that she will! I was inspired this recipe for the macaroni and cheese, so I think I'll try something similar, leaving out the taco-type ingredients (and then making it as written next time, because, yum!).

Thursday: Garlic Greens and White Beans over Polenta

I may be the only person in my family that eats this meal, but it sounds completely heavenly to me. There will be leftovers and other options for the nay-sayers if there are any. I'll win them over on polenta eventually, I swear!

Friday: Pot Stickers, Vegetable Fried Rice

I have been making pizza of some sort every Friday for a couple of months now, but I think it's time to change it up and do home-made take-out type dishes. We all love pot stickers, and I have a pound of ground pork in the freezer, so these fit perfectly. The fried rice is an awesome way to use up extra CSA vegetables that we haven't gotten to yet. Plus, I love fried rice like no one's business.

Saturday: Fajitas on the Grill, Southwest Corn Dip

We bought a beautiful skirt steak yesterday, and I think fajitas (something like this recipe) sound like the perfect way to use them up. Yum! Also, the first corn is arriving at Farmers' Markets in the area lately, so I will be there ready to grab a bag full of fresh sweet corn.

Sunday: Something with Zucchini, fruit salad

I have zucchini coming out of my ears lately, so I need new ways to use them up. This recipe for zucchini pie/quiche is a strong contender, and uses up a bunch of other stuff I have in the house already.

Preschool Lunch Ideas:

What do you send with your kid for lunch? My preschooler has recently decided to eshew all foods that were previously deemed the only foods she would eat and I'm at a loss. She would eat yogurt and crackers every day for every meal, accompanied only by candy, if she could get away with it. Which she can't. So help me out, if you would. I'm fresh out of ideas!

Monday Meal Planning 7.25.11

We are back! We survived camping and had three fun meals made over the camp fire (and then got rained out and had to leave a night early, but still! Fun!). We didn't get extremely creative this time (hot dogs, s'mores, bacon and eggs, biscuits and grilled cheese in the pie iron), but we will definitely be heading out again sometime soon and I'll try some more adventurous campfire meals next time.

Since we didn't get home until about 9:00 last night, we still have most of our unpacking to do, so the week starts out slow, food-wise. However, my parents shared some of their garden bounty with us, so I can't wait to cook those amazingly fresh vegetables.

Here goes:

Monday: Grilled BBQ chicken, dilly potatoes, and carrots

Usually I peel and slice the potatoes for our foil packet dinners, but since I have a bunch of new red potatoes, I'm just going to wash and quarter them before adding butter, fresh dill, and salt. I'm going to try baby carrots in a foil packet tonight too, topped with butter, honey, and salt. I can't wait to see how these turn out!

Tuesday: Stuffed zucchini and rice pilaf

My parents had some huge zucchinis already, so I took one and we're filling it with all kinds of good stuff (except I'm using turkey sausage instead of regular - shh...don't tell Aaron!)

Wednesday: Spicy Garlic and Lime Black Bean Enchiladas, corn bread

I usually make some sort of rice to go on the side of Mexican dishes, but since there's rice in these enchiladas, I'm going to try corn bread or something similar on the side.

Thursday: Cowboy Quesadillas, chips and guacamole

This will use up any leftover BBQ chicken from Monday, and any leftver black beans from Wednesday. That's what a call a win-win kind of dinner!

Friday: Pizza Rolls, fresh vegetables, fruit salad

I've been making pizza of some sort every Friday that we're home lately, and this week I'm using some dough I have frozen for pizza rolls. I'm filling mine with pepperoni and black olives, Gabbie's will have straight up pepperoni, and I'm guessing Aaron will want his favorite - ham and pineapple. I love that these can make all three of us happy in one baking dish!

Saturday: Out

I have actually been really good with making and sticking to meal plans lately. In fact, we've only been out to eat twice in the past two weeks, which is pretty good for us (this includes lunches!). So, of course, I want to reward myself for being so good by heading out and ruining my streak. I'm totally craving Asian food of some sort, so I'll have to convince the rest of the family that they are craving it too.

Sunday: Dinner with the extended family

Once a month Aaron's family gets together at his grandparents' house for dinner. We've promised to make it to this one (we actually got more than a couple of days notice for this one, so we can plan accordingly), so I don't have to plan dinner for Sunday. However, I do have to make a pie, because that's one of the main reasons his family likes me (besides my winning personality and ability to create adorable babies, of course), and his grandpa gets disappointed if I show up without one of my "famous" pies (famous only to them). This week will probably be cherry crumb, since they're so delicious right now.

Monday Meal Planning (on Tuesday!) 7.18.11

This is a weird week meal planning-wise, because we may be heading up north camping this weekend, but we won't know for sure until tomorrow (depends on the forecast, which currently shows rain for the entire weekend - BOO!), and if we are we have to be ready tomorrow night because we're leaving immediately after work on Thursday. Aaron asked me to meal plan for the trip, and so I've been doing some campfire cooking research and now I'm even more confused than ever. Also, like everywhere else right now, it's incredibly freaking hot, and so the meals this week can all be made without turning on the stove or oven (or even the grill because I would feel bad making Aaron stand outside in front of a hot grill with heat indexes around 102 degrees!). I'm including last night's meal here as well, because it was really good and simple.

Monday: Turkey Sandwiches on Pretzel Rolls, cut up vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, radishes), fruit salad, cheese puffs

We bought some mini pretzel baguettes at Whole Foods this past weekend, and for dinner last night we split them, topped them with sliced turkey, meunster (or monster, if you're Gabbie) cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and Swedish mustard. They were fantastic! We also gave in to Gabbie's request for Cheetos last night, but used them to help her with counting and math (we're doing some homeschool-style preschool in the evenings this summer). I asked her how many cheese puffs she wanted, and then we counted them out, and handed them to her one-by-one asking how many she had on her plate and then how many she had left, using some good-old finger math. Then she ate them all and was a very happy girl!

Tuesday: Italian Vegetable Hoagies, chips, fruit salad

Another no-cook meal, and this one is vegetarian to boot. I've been feeling like I've been eating too much meat lately, so I'm trying for at least 3 meat-free dishes a week if I can get away with it. Of course, you wouldn't be able to tell that by the meal that I have planned for...

Wednesday: BBQ pulled pork, cole slaw

We're having a "southern food" lunch potluck for book club tomorrow, so I'm making crockpot pulled pork. Left-overs will become dinner, and I don't even mind that I'll be eating the same thing all day, because it's easy and I have little to no motivation to do anything extra when it's this hot out.

Thursday: Dinner at my parents' house

No idea what we'll have, but I'm guessing it will come straight out of their garden, and I can't wait!

Friday through Sunday: Campfire food!

Here's where the research I've been doing comes in. My favorite thing growing up and going camping was grilled cheese made in a pie iron, and this post has some great ideas for using the pie iron to make slightly fancier meals. About.com has some great camping recipes too, and I've been having fun perusing these. I'm not sure what all we'll be eating, except we will be using the pie iron for at least one meal, we'll be having hot dogs over the fire at least once, and I cannot wait to make s'mores using a peanut butter cup in place of the normal chocolate bar. YUM!

Several items I would like to eat as soon as humanly possible

For some reason (I'm thinking baby growth spurt/increase in the amount she's nursing overall) I have been ridiculously hungry for the past couple of weeks. So, of course, it doesn't help that I've seen some amazing looking food on the internet while I'm stuck somewhere (work) without food. Here are several of those things that I would like to appear before me so I can eat/inhale them.

Egg Tostada Fritatta (thanks for posting this Cassie!)

It's Mexican Brinner, what could be better? Considering that breakfast burritos are just about my most favorite food ever, I'm thinking that there's no way I won't like this dish.

Hot Merguez Baguettes
I showed this to Aaron, saying something about how I wanted that in my mouth as soon as possible, and he made some sort of That's What She Said joke, which I totally deserved, but I still stand by my original statement, unintended double entendre aside.

Roasted Potatoes That Will Change Your Life
Potatoes? Good. Bacon? Good. Bleu Cheese? Good. Mixed together with a bunch of other yummy ingredients? Fantastic!

Patatas Bravas
When I was in Chicago for work a couple of weeks back, I met up with my college roommate for tapas, and this was my favorite dish of the night (or at least tied for favorite dish with baked goat cheese in tomato sauce served with slices of garlic bread).

Lemonade with Black Raspberries and Lavender
We went to a local jazz festival not too long ago and one of the vendors had sage-infused lemonade. It was one of the best things I've ever drank, and now I'm all about trying any herb-infused lemonade I can get my hands on. This one looks particularly delectable.

Mint Chocolate Cookie Dough Poppers
I usually crave savory foods, but ever since I saw Kim post about these, they have been on my mind. It has been a while since I've baked anything, and these may just be the thing to get me back in the kitchen.

Perfect Iced Coffee
I am not at all ashamed to admit that I cannot make it through my morning without a cup of coffee. However, it's been hellishly hot lately, and it's sometimes hard to choke down my hot cup o' joe. With temperatures predicted for the 90s this weekend, I may have to finally try this recipe.

Several Things to Make with Strawberries

Here in Michigan it is currently the height of strawberry season, and we are doing our darndest to eat our fair share of these gorgeous, delicious berries. The girls and I went strawberry picking this past Saturday and came home with over 8 pounds of berries to enjoy. We also got a bunch of strawberries from our CSA this past week, so I think it's safe to say we're nearly swimming in berries. In addition to simply sitting down with a bowl of berries, here are several recipes we've made (and then a couple more I want to make):

So far we've made:
Strawberry Lemonade Icebox Pie (I omitted the meringue and topped with whipped cream instead)
Strawberry Jam (placed in sterilized jars and processed for 15 minutes)
Strawberry Shortcake (my grandma's recipe and my favorite strawberry dessert - best when eaten immediately)

I still want to make:

Strawberry Basil Lemonade (we had some fresh lemonade with sage this weekend and it was amazing, so I'll be all about infusing lemonades with herbs for a while)
More strawberry jam, this time a different variety (maybe with peaches, or infused with something)
Strawberry gelato (unfortunately my ice cream maker bit the big one, so I may be out of luck on this)

Is there anything else I should make with my strawberry bounty?

The Purple Carrot

On Sunday, while reading through my friends' updates on Facebook, I noticed that two of my friends had "Liked" something called The Purple Carrot. I, of course, had to immediately click through to see what this was, since I like to know what's going on around town. Boy, was I glad I did. A food truck! Right here in our town! I had been jealous that Ann Arbor, about an hour away, had a burgeoning food truck scene, and wanted to go down there to check it out. Now I didn't have to travel so far to get in on this trend!

The first day they were serving following those status updates was today, so I drove on over to where they were parked (I was even early and had to park on the other side of the parking lot so I didn't seem too dorky for being there waiting for them to open), and placed my order. It was hard to decide - unique sandwiches, delicious looking salads, Oberon cheddar and ham soup - but I've been wanting to try bahn mi for quite a while and since it was on the menu here, it was definitely time.

So I stepped up and ordered, and a minute later, I was on my way back to the office, smelling the sandwich and getting infinitely hungrier the entire ride. The sandwich has beef pate, road beef, asparagus, and other pickled vegetables with a sriracha mayonaise (two words alone that sound heavenly to me). The sandwich was definitely worth the wait, and I love that it came with some dressed greens on the side. I felt very virtuous eating all these vegetables for lunch, and it was especially nice since I've been craving copious amounts of vegetables lately.
 

After I had ordered my sandwich, the woman at the window asked if I'd like anything else. Looking down at the menu, I saw that they had cake pops for a dollar each. I couldn't pass that up; a little something sweet to round out my meal. It was just slightly sweet, definitely less so than the cake pops I've made, but very good (and cute to boot).

I will definitely be showing up where they're parked again sometime soon (I have to try that soup!). Maybe next time I'll do brunch, my favorite meal. I'm so excited to have these guys in town!